Knowledge base

Сlickky is a full-stack platform for mobile advertisers and publishers. We offer solutions for efficient user acquisition and traffic monetization.

If you’re new to mobile marketing, we can guide you how to start. A vocabulary of mobile marketing consists of many terms and acronyms, and their definitions sometimes also include various terms. We chose the key nomenclature you need to know and tried to give them definitions that any mobile newcomer can understand.

Counterparties of the mobile market

Mobile publishers are the owners of mobile websites or apps where ads can be shown. The more traffic a mobile publisher has, the more effectiveness an ad campaign can display.

Mobile advertisers are those who need to promote their brands, products, services and applications. Advertisers buy mobile traffic for different purposes: to promote a brand’s image, to generate sales, to drive app downloads and in-app purchases.

Ad Networks are the intermediary between advertisers (the demand side) and publishers (the supply side). Ad networks aggregate offers from advertisers and run campaigns on the publisher ad placements.

Technical means

AdExchange is a technology platform that constitutes a real-time marketplace to buy and sell ads. It is a way for publishers to operate thousands of offers automatically and gaining bigger profit. AdExchange works through API.

DSP is short for the demand side platform. That’s a platform used to provide efficient automatization of the ad buying process for advertisers. There are a lot of publisher sites, and DSP gives advertisers a single interface to search for best sources to publish ads, to buy, target, optimize and to track ad campaigns.

SSP is a shortcut for supply side platform. It is created for publishers to ease the process of selling the impressions and to optimize their revenue.

Programmatic trading means that the ad buying and selling process is fully automatized. The rate of human intervention is little or no.

RTB means real time bidding and serves as a shortcut for live auction of selling and buying of ad impressions.

What activities do mobile marketers perform?

User acquisition is the activity, that makes target users to see ads and make some actions (install, purchase, subscribe, etc.) during the mobile ad campaign and, eventually, participate in it. To calculate the acquisition rate, just divide those who performed some actions by those who saw an ad.

ASO means app store optimization and includes the plenty of actions to make your app visible in the stores full of apps. Every app store (App Store by Apple or Google Play by Google and other alternative but smaller marketplaces) has its own rules and needs specific actions under app description, screenshots and keywords.

App monetization is the number of activities that must result into getting revenue from your app.

To boost an app is to reach an overall top ranking or specific category top ranking in app stores (e.g., among Top 10 Free Games). A boost campaign goal is to attract the organic downloads due to presence in charts and high visibility. Ranks are reached when a large amount of installs is driven to an application over a very short period.

Lead generation is the process of finding and attracting people interested in your app. The purpose is not only to attract as many as possible users but also to minimize your spending on marketing campaign and attract active, loyal, and paying users.

What payment models are available?

eCPM means effective cost per 1000 impressions delivered. That is the useful metric to track the ad performance and to estimate the earnings that an advertiser becomes for every 1000 impressions. To calculate eCPM, you have to divide earnings by impressions in thousands. Some additional info about eCPM calculation can be found here.

CPI (cost per install) is the payment model when advertisers pay a publisher for delivered app installs. In such model the install is considered delivered after the first opening of the app. To calculate CPI, you have to divide the cost of the campaign by number of installs it delivered.

CPS (cost per sale) is the payment model when an advertiser receives a commission per every purchased item.

CPL (cost per lead) model means that an advertiser pays a publisher for users who users who performed a certain action, for instance have submitted a contact form or have left their phone number or signed up for a sweepstake.

CPE (cost per engagement) model means that an advertiser pays a publisher for an interaction with an ad or mobile site elements. It can be any interaction that shows the rate of user involvement like watching a video, answering questions, playing a game, taking a web-tour, etc. Clickky was among the first companies to introduce such payment model.

What ad formats are used?

Banner is the most common type of mobile advertisement and represents a graphic image placed at any place on a screen.

Interstitial is a type of full-screen ads that covers the app interface and can be also displayed within a mobile website or when website is loading.

Native ads is a type of advertising which is incorporated into the app or mobile site and looks like a piece of original content.

Preroll is a type of video ad up to 10-15 seconds in length streamed prior to a video clip.

Postroll is a type of video ad up to 10-15 seconds in length streamed after a video clip.

Push notification are the messages the app is sending to the user’s lockscreen or homescreen. The messages can be sent if a user is not active within an app for a long time and are intended to lead users back to the app.

Rich media is an advertisement that includes text, graphics, video and audio elements and provides the high user interaction and involvement level.

Video ads are any type of digital advertising performed through a video stream.

How to measure the effectiveness of an ad campaign?

MAU stands for monthly active users and concerns the total number of users who used an app in any given month. It helps to analyze the app performance compared to number of downloads.

DAU stands for daily active users and concerns the number of users who used an app in a given day. Thus, you can see some tendencies in app usage. According to some sources, DAU considered as daily average users and shows how many unique users used an app daily. When you become your app analytics, clarify what your partners mean under DAU.

Retention rate shows you what share of those who downloaded an app, opened and used it after install.

CTR (click-through rate) determines what is the share of clicks in the total quantity of ad impressions. To calculate CTR, divide number of clicks by number of impressions.

Conversion of a user means that user saw an ads and performed some actions (download, subscription, etc.), and can be considered as a prospective customer or lead. You can measure conversion rate when dividing those users who made some actions by those who saw an ad.

ARPU is the average revenue per user, that means the sum of money the app owner becomes from each user. To calculate ARPU you have to divide revenue by active users. If you have an app that proposes to make in-app purchases, you can also use ARPPU.

ARPPU is the average revenue per paying user. While dividing revenue by paying users, you get the sum of money from an average user who had ever paid you.

LTV (life time value) is the value your user delivers over the course of their entire lifetime engagement with your app. For apps, lifetime value can be a traditional monetary amount, or a form of data, like levels completed, articles read, notes taken, or images taken.

ROI (return on investment) or ROMI (return on marketing investment) is a metric that describes how much money is gained or lost on marketing relative to the amount invested.

Churn rate is a ratio that shows how many users abandoned your app over some period.

Additional terms

Mobile ad inventory is a space for ads to be displayed or the amount of the available ad placements.

Ad unit is any type of mobile ads that can be placed on the mobile ad inventory. Ad unit is an unified description for any type of mobile ads.

Fill rate describes the ability to cover the mobile ad inventory by ad units. By other words, the percentage of space for ads that can be filled with different types of ads.

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